The Twelfth Apostle
by Shrapnel893
Summary: Universal Century. A time when pasts are broken and hearts are shattered. For one, can she find the strength to mend it all and be who she wants to be? In spite of it all, can she move forward and find hope in a cold world that has destroyed so many, including herself?
1. What The Distant Heart Seeks

**What the Distant Heart Seeks**

The young woman rested the flat of her hand on the cold surface of her Mobile Suit, a refreshing sensation that multiplied as she stroked her fingers across it. Even though it had been repaired into a new construct, stripped of its basic frame and weaponry, it was still familiar to her touch. Each stroke beneath her palm brought forth a memory of each battle fought and even though there were no scars and abrasions etched into its surface anymore, she still felt them. They were a part of her, and they would never wither or disappear. She remembered words she spoke once before:

"Compassion alone cannot save people," she whispered under her breath, feeling her way through the reaches of her mind as her fingers continued to move across her Mobile Suit's surface. "It can't erase sin or wash away our impurities. But, in spite of it all..."

In spite of it all. Those words, she wondered what they meant and why she had said them back then. _In spite of it all._ She mulled over the words as she watched her hand gently move around, this way and that way; slowly.

"It's all too sad," she echoed the words of her fellow pilot, friend to herself and the Princess. Removing her hand from the surface of her Mobile Suit, she looked down at the lines patterning across her palm, lines that represented years upon years of sadness and pain. Sorrow. Curling her fingers, she continued to mull over those words, and the reason behind them. It all started, she realized, with touch of a human hand, the warmth of another.

Opening her blue eyes for the first time, everything was blank and unfamiliar. Everything she saw was confined behind glass, blurred by the coldness needed to preserve her body. Encased inside her capsule, she blinked for the first time as she took her first breath of air; it was cold. It was cold and dark, lonely and quiet, lying inside the capsule, but, it lasted only a few seconds more, as the capsule opened and her newly awakened senses were bathed in white light. A hand, unknown to her, grasped one of her own and pulled her up. It was warm, the hand.

"Welcome to this world. Do you feel cold?" a voice said, the owner of the hand that had pulled her up. A young man wearing the colors of Neo Zeon was before her, with a smiling expression that was colder than the temperature that she now felt within the room; sending a sudden chill down her spine. The first time she had felt human warmth and human coldness were in the exact same moment, and as the young man further helped her out of the capsule, she knew he was her master.

"You're the twelfth one," he continued as she planted both of her naked feet firmly on the floor. "Your sisters are working outside." The calm and reassuring tone to his voice was in stark contrast with the cold expression still on his face, hidden behind a smile. He still held onto her hand; it was still warm. "Come with me to the outside world."

Glemy Toto. That was his name, she found out years later. Her first master amongst many down a long list filled with suffering. His name, who he was, it hadn't mattered to her then, and when his beloved, Roux Louka, took his life, she hadn't wept. The only thing that changed was who's orders she would receive and carry out from then on.

Her sisters, too, had perished at the Battle of Axis, and she, the only one besides Ple Two, had defied the dedication and service they had all upheld to their late first master. For the others, it would be their first, and their last. She had wept then, for them. Each of them had come from the same being, but, as with everyone else, they each were different than the source they were created from. Individuals, only with the same face and abilities; individual souls.

The concept of a "soul", the term she had pondered over and over all those years ago, still stuck with her even now. She had thought then: _could a soul be lonely?_ If her sisters were still alive today, would they be wondering the same things as she? Would they be still be different as they were back then, or would they become one and the same? A single entity only existing to follow their master and his or her orders, without question? Would they— _no,_ they were dead now, and they couldn't be brought back, no matter how much she longed them to be beside her. Now she knew: _yes, a soul can be lonely._

There was a void in her heart where eleven little identical but different lights had once shone brightly, snuffed out in a matter of milliseconds as she had floated aimlessly in space, in the darkness. All those years ago. The bond with her sisters had been severed in those milliseconds, and she had desperately reached out for the lines that had connected them, only managing to grasp the thin air inside the cockpit; nothingness.

Bawling her hand into a fist, she let it fall to her side as she looked up at her Mobile Suit, her blue eyes still searching for an answer to the words: _in spite of it all. _

It's all too sad.


	2. An Answer?

**An Answer?**

Walking out back to her quarters, Marida still pondered the words, her mind reaching out to other memories that she'd rather leave buried. Ones that she knew she couldn't avoid in order to figure out the real meaning behind them; _in spite of it all._

The escape pod had been cramped and dark; lonely. The landing had jostled her small frame around the cramped environment and as a result her face had collided with the back of her seat and knocked her unconscious. She woke to the smell of dried blood and blaring lights, her escape pod's emergency systems still online. Looking through her helmet proved to be futile as it was smeared on the inside with vomit and the blood she smelt. Cracks across the thermoplastic glass of her helmet were sealed thanks to the functions of her normal suit. Slamming into the bulkhead overhead had caused those cracks, and it was then that she realized that the pod was facing upward. Upon removing her helmet, a pounding migraine ripped its way through her skull, and she let out a gasp of pain, clutching the side of her face in response.

_This is my punishment for defying my dedication to master._ She thought, inhaling and exhaling rapidly, as the pain shot its way down to the rest of her body. _This is my punishment for abandoning my sisters. _Reaching out to the escape pod's hatch, her mind became blank and her vision wavered as she started to lose consciousness again. _This is the punishment for my betrayal._

Clutching the same side of her face as back then, Marida held onto the handle that went down the corridor to her quarters, and time stopped as she gasped for air.

Ple Twelve slumped inside of the escape pod, her mind listlessly floating around inside her head: _as an individual, a soul, it were as if I killed them with my own two hands. I'm horrible. I abandoned them. I'm a traitor. Master's dead too, I can't..._

The pressurized sound of the hatch being opened caused her to look up, and she reached out, believing for a second that Heaven had come to take her back to where her sisters were. As the hatch fully parted, she was bathed in a white light and she shielded her eyes from its intensity, and that was when a form appeared. It blocked the harsh white light from outside and encased her in darkness, and it was then that Ple Twelve knew: this was to be her second master.

Months later, unkempt and filthy, Ple Twelve came under the thumb of a new master. This time, it was a cruel and vile woman who only saw the value in other people as things to be used and discarded. It was this new master that had broken her, that had violated her, and had given her the most punishment for her betrayal. Multiple scars and burns were accumulated over the years with her third master, and frequently, she would be temporarily given to a new master each night, and sometimes, the same one multiple times. Countless times, she didn't feel anything at all. Countless times, nothing registered in her mind other than how to serve the constant fluctuation of new masters, and to follow her third master's commands. All she remembered were the lights of the headlamps hanging from the ceiling and the creaking of the beds, the harsh voice of her third master, and the feeling of something, always heavy, been removed from her stomach. Then, one day, the man who was to be her fourth master came.

Marida stood in front of her quarters, staring at the door. Blue eyes downcast, she remembered the first time she had met Zinnerman; her fourth master.


End file.
